The Tony winner plays Norma Desmond after originating the role of Betty Schaefer in the 1994 Broadway production.

Alice Ripley
Marc J. Franklin

The North Shore Music Theatre production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard is presented September 24–October 6 in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Tony winner Alice Ripley, who created the role of Betty Schaefer in the original 1994 Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard, now plays former silent-screen star Norma Desmond, joined by Nicholas Rodriguez (Tarzan) as Joe Gillis, William Michals (South Pacific) as Max Von Mayerling, Lizzie Klemperer (School of Rock) as Betty Schaefer, Kevin Massey (A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder) as Artie Green, Robert Saoud, and Neal Mayer (Les Misérables) as Cecil B. DeMille.

“I can just stand there, and the sound of the music reminds me of when I watched Glenn [Close] stand there in the big white cuffs,” Ripley told Playbill in 2017, as she prepared to sing Norma's anthemic “As If We Never Said Goodbye” in concert. “That informs your movement. You visualize it, but also, there’s this three or four-dimensional capability you have to feel with your heart or imagination. It makes you move a certain way. Am I cold? Am I hot? Do I want to take the coat off? Is it just right? I think everything is just right in that moment.

“Let’s just say I’m ready when it’s ready for me.”

Sunset Boulevard is produced for North Shore Music Theatre by Bill Hanney, Kevin P. Hill, and Matthew Chappell.